by Molly Macrae
“Mmm, not without prompting questions—mine to be exact. What’s up?”
I told her about the purported bank meeting between Rachel, Hugh, and Al Rogalla, but didn’t mention the Spiveys as my source of information.
“It seems like there’d be an ethics line she wouldn’t—or shouldn’t—cross to tell you anything. On the other hand, if business or real estate was involved, there might be a public aspect to it with records available. In any case, you’re too late. There goes Team Purl, slinking off into the night.”
She was right; loping Joe, slouching Zach, and upright Rachel were on their way down the stairs—off to bomb Main Street’s benches and bike racks. Ardis had rejoined her team, too, and Ernestine and Tammie were putting the finishing touches on crocheted leaves and flower petals they’d made sprout from uprights of the center stair rail.
“You know, you could let the investigation take a back burner for a few hours, Kath, and just enjoy the bombing.” Thea grinned. “Don’t you love this? How often do you get to say something like ‘sit back and enjoy the bombing’ in Blue Plum? See you at the footbridge at midnight. And if you trip over a vital clue while you’re traipsing through the park, pick it up and bring it with you.”
Before joining Ernestine and Tammie, I took a chance and called Joe. He didn’t mind contributing ideas and concrete actions to help our investigations along, but interrogating witnesses tended to be beyond his comfort range.
“You don’t need to ask her specific questions,” I said. “Just lead the conversation around to Hugh.”
“Already done.”
“You’re one in a million.”
“Not me. Zach. He said he wanted to know more about Hugh so he’d be in the proper state of mind for Ardis’ memorial at the footbridge.”
“Do you think that’s true, or is he playing boy genius?” Zach asking a question to satisfy his state of mind was one thing. But he knew about our occasional detecting. He’d been present when we uncovered the truth about a previous murder. And he was bright, independent, and more curious than any cat I’d known.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Joe said.
“And—”
“And I’ll ask Rachel when she last spoke to Hugh.”
“And be careful, because you’re at least one in a thousand.” I disconnected and pushed a tickling strand of hair behind my ear. Or I thought it was the hair that annoyed me. It might have been a niggling strand of dread.
* * *
“When was the last time you strolled down the middle of Main Street?” Tammie asked. “I tell you what. This’ll be something to tell the grandkids.”
“She isn’t strolling,” I muttered to Ernestine, “she’s standing. She’s standing while we’re over here stitching. And it isn’t like downtown Blue Plum is devoid of life at this time of night. Someone is bound to see her.”
Tammie’s thrill at “strolling” down an empty Main Street was lasting longer than her attention span for bombing signs had.
“Someone’s bound to see us, too,” Ernestine said. “Isn’t it funny how little light the streetlights seem to give on an ordinary night? Tonight Main Street feels like Rockefeller Center.”
“It does. Have you ever been there? Rockefeller Center?” I tied off the strip I’d wrapped around the post of a crosswalk sign and moved a few yards to a speed limit sign.
“I never have.” Ernestine was fitting a giant beret onto a mailbox.
“Neither have I.”
“You should toss that beret in the air like Mary Tyler Moore,” Tammie called.
“I’ll go get her,” Ernestine said. “I’ve got giant chicken feet in my pack she might like to play with.”
“How many giant things have you got in your pack?”
“Some of them are Mel’s special contributions,” Ernestine said. “She enjoyed herself immensely.” On a soft chuckle, she trundled out into the street to get Tammie.
“What a hoot,” Tammie said when Ernestine gave her the giant yellow feet. “Are you sure these aren’t owl feet? They look like owl feet to me, and they’re a hoot. I know, why don’t we put them on the ‘Welcome to Historic Blue Plum’ sign down the way? I’ll go do it.”
“That’s in the next block,” Ernestine said.
“And we’re supposed to stick together,” Tammie said in a singsong voice. “You’ll know where I am and I know where you are. You’ll be able to see me, for goodness’ sake. We’ve got our phones. Ardis and her crew are already strung out along back there. We’ll never get this done if we don’t spread out, too.”
“Sure.” I stood up to give my knees a rest. “Go ahead, Tammie. Good idea.”
“Do you think it is, Kath?” Ernestine asked.
Tammie didn’t care what I thought. “Yahoo,” she said. “Bombs away.”
“You’ve heard of loose cannons,” Ernestine said, coming back to the sidewalk. “She’s a loose bomb.”
“But if we try to keep her reined in, she’ll drive us nuts.”
“And then we’d be knit wits, wouldn’t we? Now, would you like to see what else I have in my pack?” She tugged on a corner of turquoise crochet that grew and grew until it popped out, leaving her pack looking like an empty husk. “It’s a moray,” she said happily.
* * *
We’d told the teenagers to stick with their teams—not because any of us believed a random murderer was loose in town—but because it made good sense for general safety’s sake. It also made sense in case we were seen and reported or stopped. The kids, on their own, might have a harder time explaining what they were doing. Especially if they were stopped by Clod. Especially if Zach were stopped by Clod—I knew Clod’s opinion of Zach and his family and could easily imagine Zach’s bright, independent mouth igniting downtown fireworks.
What hadn’t occurred to me was how hard it would be to keep the adults with their teams. Tammie was the first to disappear.
Chapter 20
“She’s a grown woman,” Ernestine said. “Although she doesn’t seem to be the kind of grown woman who follows directions.” She peered up the dark street as though she’d be able to see anything closer than the five-foot moray eel we’d just attached to the windows of the electric company. Tammie was no longer in sight. “Did she attach the chicken feet to the welcome sign, or did they march off with her?”
Ernestine and I went to check the welcome sign, enjoying the image of Tammie and a pair of giant yellow chicken feet marching off into the distance. But we found the feet standing proud as part of the WELCOME TO HISTORIC BLUE PLUM sign.
“Try calling her phone,” Ernestine said.
She didn’t answer and her voice mail was full.
“I could call the others,” I said, “and ask if they’ve seen her, but I kind of hate to admit we’ve lost her, you know? Do you think we should be worried?”
“If we don’t see her somewhere along the street, and if she doesn’t show up at the footbridge, we’ll call her again.” Ernestine bent to wrap more striped knitting around a NO PARKING sign. “She’s a grown woman,” she repeated.
The courthouse clock rang eleven o’clock. A freight train rumbled through, the engineer leaning on the horn through all four of the crossings in town. The dark and the late hour made the rumble and half-mile hooooooooooonk seem bigger and closer than they would have if they were surrounded by the ordinary bustle of noontime. Ernestine’s energy and good humor began to flag and I made her sit on one of the benches Ardis and team Needle had bombed. She stroked the crocheted seat.
“It’s comfy,” she said. “I could curl up right here and take a nap.”
“Why don’t I take you home, Ernestine?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’ve put in a good night’s work.”
“And I’ll see it finished, too.”
“Good. Me, too. Say, did you
try your experiment? Trying to remember more about Tuesday night?”
“I remembered the name of the tune he was playing. “It was ‘Flowers of the Forest.’”
“You don’t sound happy about it.”
“Because there are superstitions about the tune and I don’t like believing in superstitions.”
I sat on the bench beside her. “What are they?”
“One is that you should never play the tune indoors.”
“That’s pretty much true of bagpipes in general, isn’t it?”
“Only for the unenlightened, dear. Another is that it’s bad luck to play the tune unless it’s at a funeral.”
“Thea says Hugh played at a funeral in Knoxville on Monday.”
“He did?” That seemed to lift her spirits, but a few seconds of thought flattened them again. “But does that funeral count if it happened the day before you play the tune? Do you see what I mean? No, no, no.” She batted her words away with her hands. “Don’t even try to see what I mean. I sound like a first-class ninny.”
“Wondering how a superstition works doesn’t mean you believe in it, Ernestine.”
“But the last one is the worst—the tune shouldn’t be played unless someone has died. If you do play it, and someone hasn’t died, then playing it will bring about the death of a person close to the piper. Isn’t that a nasty thought to put in someone’s head? As soon as I realized what tune he’d been playing, I felt like I shouldn’t have been enjoying Hugh’s music at all that night. He played the tune and now he’s dead.”
“But Hugh was the piper, not someone close to the piper.”
“You can’t get much closer to the piper than being the piper,” Ernestine said.
“You don’t believe he piped himself to death, though, do you? You don’t, Ernestine. You know you don’t.”
“But has anyone told us how he died? Why haven’t they?” She looked at her knees, muttering.
“Hey, are you all right?”
“I’m giving myself a good talking-to for being a ridiculous old woman. Imagine, letting that—that—that irrational worm wiggle into my head.”
“Think about it this way—anytime anyone learns to play that tune, they have to practice. Probably over and over and over, right? So, have you ever heard of mass die-offs among the friends and families of bagpipe students? Of course not. Do you need another minute before we move on?”
“No.” Ernestine patted my knee. “I needed your common sense and a good dose of reality. Let’s go attach a lion’s mane jellyfish to the porch of the County Extension.”
“You’ve got one of those?”
“In the garbage bag, there. A medium- to small-sized specimen, inaccurate colors. I thought John would appreciate it and the eel. A touch of the deep blue sea in downtown Blue Plum.”
We wrapped the posts of a few more street signs on our way to install the lion’s mane, and stopped to do the same for the sign at the Methodist church, too. The church, set well back from the street in its tree-studded lawn, had already had a visit from Joe and team Purl. The Purls had left the sign for us, but had wrapped the trunks of the larger trees in spirals of rainbow garter stitch and hung one of the smaller trees with the giant knitted trout flies Thea had hoped for, and a few knitted trout, as well. The lawn had also sprouted a fairy circle of red-capped toadstools. We looked, but didn’t see Tammie anywhere.
My phone buzzed as Ernestine opened the garbage bag and unfurled her jellyfish. It was Thea.
“Thought you’d like an update,” she said. “First about how hard it is to keep a team from unraveling, if you will.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that. It’s my fault. I told her she could go on ahead. Is she there with you?”
There was silence.
“Thea?”
“I was talking about Wanda. Who are you talking about?”
“Tammie. She was getting antsy. We haven’t seen her since I told her she could go on ahead. What happened to Wanda?”
“She said she forgot something,” Thea said, “and she’d be right back. So far she isn’t. On the other hand, the installations are looking great, don’t you think? And I’m sure Tammie and Wanda will show up for the finale at the footbridge. Which brings me to my second update. I won’t be there.”
“What? Why not?”
“Did you know that the town ducks aren’t keeping themselves confined to the mucky banks of the mucky creek in the park anymore? They aren’t even keeping themselves confined to the blankity-muck park. And I stepped in what they aren’t keeping in the park anymore. It’s on my shoes. And now I’m going home.”
“You could change shoes and come back.”
“These are toeless heels. Picture that. You and Ardis can handle the memorial at the bridge. We’ve done a good job out here tonight. But I’m going home. I’ll see you at Mel’s in the morning.”
“You’re neurotic.” I said that after she’d disconnected. It didn’t seem right to add to her neurosis by telling her about it. Before I could put the phone away, Joe called.
“Bad news,” he said. “Rachel twisted her ankle.”
“Oh, heck. Badly? What happened?”
“She said she landed wrong hopping off the low wall at the post office. She was able to walk on it, but she wanted to go home and ice it.”
“Did you get a chance to ask her about the meeting at the bank? Or were you even able to get a word in edgewise?”
“She was kind of quiet tonight, but yeah, I asked her a few questions. Mild, but drifting in the right direction.”
“And did you see her twist it? Did she limp?”
“Are we being suspicious?”
“Observant sounds better than suspicious.”
“I didn’t see it happen. But you can twist an ankle without falling down or making a big fuss. She favored it, but she could walk and didn’t want us to bother walking her to her car. Or to go get it for her. Zach offered. She drives a BMW.” A gabbling on Joe’s end interrupted him, and then he was back. “Zach says not just a BMW—a BMW Z4.”
“Tell him I’m impressed and don’t tell him I’ll Google it later.” I told Joe about Tammie and Wanda both going AWOL and about Thea going home for a different kind of foot problem.
“The best-laid plans of ducks and librarians,” he said. “See you at the footbridge in a few.”
“Wait. Has Ardis checked in with you?”
“No. But we didn’t ask her to, did we?”
“No, and they probably have their hands full.”
While I’d been talking, Ernestine made herself comfortable on the bench in front of the Extension office. Ardis and Team Needle hadn’t hit that bench, but Ernestine had yards of tentacles and a jellyfish bell the size of a golf umbrella to cuddle up to on the bench. She’d nodded off, dozing against the bell, the tentacles spread across her lap and down the front walk.
“Just resting my eyes,” she said, opening them and blinking rapidly when I called her name. “That was quite refreshing, and not many people can say they napped with a lion’s mane jellyfish. Shall we hang this handsome fellow and be on our way?”
Hanging a monstrous knitted jellyfish on the front of a nondescript 1970s brick office building was good in theory but difficult in practice. We lacked height and the building lacked anything much in the way of protrusions we could turn into attachment points. The boxwood and euonymus struggling to grow in the brick planter running the length of the building made it hard to even get close to the building. But the scrawny bushes finally gave us the answer, and we spread Ernestine’s lion’s mane out so that it swam along on top of them.
“It’s not quite how I pictured it,” she said, “but it’s very exciting to see it heading for the door and to think of it swimming inside to sign up for the next beekeeping workshop.”
* * *
As we made
our way to the footbridge, Ardis sent a text. “Developments,” it said. “Delayed. More later.” Ernestine and I laughed about how she treated texts as though she paid for them by the word, like old-fashioned telegrams.
* * *
Joe and Zach—what was left of Team Purl—arrived first at the footbridge. Joe’s lean silhouette showed against the sky, standing in the middle of the graceful arch. He’d been leaning his elbows on the rail and straightened when he saw Ernestine and me coming. Zach sat on the steps. Ernestine joined him, and after all her worries over the past weeks, about keeping individual projects secret from the rest of the bomb squad so that we could all look forward to being surprised, she excitedly told him every one of her secrets. While she did, the courthouse clock struck midnight. By ten minutes past, Ardis and her team still hadn’t arrived.
“Do you hear them out there anywhere?” I asked. “You’d think we’d hear Ambrose whacking something with his cane, if nothing else. Shall I call one of them?”
“We can give them a few more minutes,” Joe said. “No telling what ‘developments’ means with those two old coots. Has Ardis told you about the prancing?”
“Wouldn’t that be a sight on Main Street? We would’ve heard more than ducks quacking in their sleep if that was going on, though.”
“Why don’t we start,” Ernestine said, “and anyone else who comes along can join us when they get here?”
“Good idea.” I opened the last garbage bag I had—by then I felt as though I’d been dragging it around for hours. “I have some of the crochet. Ardis has the rest. Come on, Zach. Our last hurrah, before us old fogies fall asleep on our feet. Or in the creek.”
“That should be we old fogies,” Zach said.
“Thank you, Zach. Joe, have you got extra mouth tape—I mean, duct tape?”
We’d made eighteen squares to hang from the bridge rails—nine for each side. Actually we’d cheated—the squares were crocheted, but not by any of us. Wanda had bought a box of old afghans at an estate sale, none of them in a condition worth saving whole. Pieces of them were worth rescuing for our purpose, though. Wanda had washed them, cut them into two-by-two-foot squares, and handed them out to the rest of us. We’d mended where necessary, embellished here and there, and bound off the edges of the squares. They were a mix of patterns and colors and ended up an eclectic riot of creativity and we’d decided they were perfect for bombing the footbridge. I took out the nine squares I had in my bag and divided them between Zach, Joe, Ernestine, and me.